Part II
Offense to Sentence Date Lag Time Comparison

FACT: Scoresheets that have been received by the Department of Corrections for offenders sentenced under the Florida Criminal Punishment Code are not representative of the true impact of sentencing events under the Code.

FINDINGS:

There were 82,001 scoresheets submitted to the Department of Corrections with sentence dates in FY2002-2003 and offense dates on or after October 1, 2001. The number of scoresheets submitted to the Department of Corrections with sentence dates in FY2001-2002 and offense dates on or after October 1, 2000 was 81,366.

Lag Time - The average length of time that passes from the date an offender commits a crime to the date the offender is sentenced for that crime is 5.8 months for sentencing events in FY2002-2003. As defined by the word "average", half of the lag times that occur are less than 5.8 months and half are greater than 5.8 months (Table 1).

More serious and violent crimes typically have much longer lag time than the less serious property or drug crimes. A data file that is constrained by the date of offense must allow for enough time for the serious and violent crimes to be processed and convicted in order to represent a true distribution of sentencing events. The Florida Criminal Punishment Code went into effect for offenses committed on or after October 1, 1998. As of September 1, 2003, the Department of Corrections had received over 547,000 Code scoresheets. However, because of the long lag time for serious offenses, the information to date is skewed more heavily by the less serious offenses.

The average lag time for FY2001-2002 sentencing events is 5.6 months, just shy of the 5.8 months for the scoresheets received with sentence dates in FY2002-2003 (Table 1). When the lag times are examined by offense severity level and type of primary offense, the average lag time for level 10 offenses (most serious) was 9.4 months for sentencing events during FY2001-2002. In FY2002-2003, the average lag time for level 10 offenses was 10.4 months. Also, for murder/manslaughter, the average lag time from offense to sentence is 10.2 months for sentencing dates in both FY2000-2001 and FY2002-2003 (Table 2).

Drug offenses comprised the largest group of scoresheets received in both FY2001-2001 (37.0%) and FY2002-2003 (36.2%) (Table 3).

The more violent, serious offenses represented more than eighteen percent of the scoresheets in both FY2001-2002 (18.6%) and FY2002-03 (18.1%) (Table 3).

Table 1
Comparison of Average Time from Offense Date to Sentence Date
by Offense Severity Level of Primary Offense, in Months

Offense Severity Level

FY 2001-2002Sentence Dates1

FY 2002-2003Sentence Dates2

1

5.2

5.3

2

5.8

6.1

3

4.9

5.1

4

5.3

5.6

5

5.8

6.1

6

6.3

6.4

7

7.0

7.3

8

7.7

8.4

9

8.9

8.7

10

9.4

10.4

Overall Average

5.6

5.8

1Offense dates on or after October 1, 2000.2Offense dates on or after October 1, 2001.

Table 2
Comparison of Average "Lag" Time
from Offense Date to Sentence Date
by Primary Offense, in Months

Primary Offense

FY 2001-2002Sentence Dates1

FY 2002-2003Sentence Dates2

Murder/Manslaughter

10.2

10.2

Sexual/Lewd Behavior

8.2

8.7

Robbery

6.6

6.8

Violent, Other

6.1

6.2

Burglary

5.6

6.0

Property Theft/Fraud/Damage

6.0

6.2

Drugs

5.2

5.5

Weapons

5.8

6.2

Other

5.0

5.1

Overall Average

5.6

5.8

1Offense dates on or after October 1, 2000.2Offense dates on or after October 1, 2001.